On The Road Again: Garbage

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viernes, 14 de junio de 2024

Garbage "Strange Little Birds"

Strange Little Birds is the sixth studio album by American rock band Garbage. It was released on June 10, 2016, through the band's own record label, Stunvolume. It is their second independent album release, and follows 2012's Not Your Kind of People. The album's press release describes Strange Little Birds as "a sweeping, cinematic record of a unified mood: darkness".

Strange Little Birds was preceded by a lead single, "Empty", and supported by an international tour.

Singer Shirley Manson said, "the guiding principle was keeping it fresh, and relying on instinct both lyrically and musically"; "To me, this record, funnily enough, has the most to do with the first record than any of the previous records. It’s getting back to that beginner’s headspace." Manson described Strange Little Birds as a "romantic" record. Manson clarified later, "What I mean by romance, really, is vulnerability. I used to feel so scared, and I think that was why I was so aggressive — but I’m much more willing to admit weaknesses than I was before.” Each song, she says, addresses “different points in my life between me and a person I’ve loved. They’re hot spots in my life, when I was afraid, or vulnerable, or didn’t behave at my best.” Drummer Butch Vig said that the album is a departure for the band, darker and more "cinematic and atmospheric".

Manson's approach to lyrical subject matter came from her perception of an absence of darkness in current pop cultural trends. "I feel like the musical landscape of late has been incredibly happy and shiny and poppy. Everybody’s fronting all the time, dancing as fast as they can, smiling as hard as they can, working on their brand. Nobody ever says, ‘Actually, I’m lost and I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing with the rest of my life and I'm frightened.’ "There aren't really any upbeat pop songs,” says Vig. “Even "Empty", which has a big, anthemic guitar sound, has pretty dark lyrics".

Writing and recording for Strange Little Birds took over two years, beginning in early 2013. Garbage recorded over twenty tracks during the sessions. The band recorded the album in Vig's basement and at engineer Billy Bush's Red Razor Sounds studio in Los Angeles. Vig stated, "we mixed it so it’s kind of confessional, almost confrontational. On a lot of songs, Shirley’s voice sounds really loud, in your face, and really dry. There are not a lot of effects. There are some moments on the record that get really huge, but a lot of it is really intimate." Two of the songs written during the sessions, "The Chemicals" and "On Fire", were given a vinyl release on Record Store Day the previous year.

Strange Little Birds debuted at number 17 on the UK Albums Chart with 5,293 copies sold on its first week, becoming Garbage's first studio album to miss the top 10 in the United Kingdom. It dropped out of the top 100 the following week, making it the band's lowest-charting album in the UK. In the United States, the album sold 20,000 (21,000 with TEA and SEA units) copies to debut at number one on both the Top Rock Albums and Alternative Albums charts, and at number 14 on the Billboard 200. The album also peaked at number nine on the Australian Albums Chart, earning the band their sixth consecutive top 10 studio album in that country.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Garbage

"Sometimes" 2:52
"Empty" 3:54
"Blackout" 6:32
"If I Lost You" 4:11
"Night Drive Loneliness" 5:24
"Even Though Our Love Is Doomed" 5:26
"Magnetized" 3:54
"We Never Tell" 4:25
"So We Can Stay Alive" 6:01
"Teaching Little Fingers to Play" 3:58
"Amends" 6:04

Total length: 52:41

Garbage "Not Your Kind Of People (Japan, Sony Records Intl., SICP-3478)"

Not Your Kind of People is the fifth studio album by American rock band Garbage. It was released on May 11, 2012, through the band's own record label, Stunvolume. The album marks the return of the band after a seven-year hiatus that started with previous album Bleed Like Me. Guitarist Duke Erikson said at the launch of the record that "working with Garbage again was very instinctual. Like getting on a bicycle...with three other people." The band emphasized that they did not want to reinvent themselves, but embrace their sonic identity, reflecting their classic sound whilst updating it for 2012. Although Shirley Manson's morose dispositions have a presence on the record, many of the songs share a more optimistic outlook on life, influenced by some of Manson's personal experiences during their hiatus.

Recorded mostly at various recording studios in California, Not Your Kind of People was produced by Garbage, and was engineered and mixed by Billy Bush. The album contains bass guitar parts recorded by Justin Meldal-Johnsen while Finnish actress Irina Björklund performs the musical saw on one track. Both daughters of band-members Steve Marker and Butch Vig laid down vocals on the album's title track. Photos for the album package were shot by Autumn de Wilde at the Paramour Mansion in Silver Lake, Los Angeles.

Not Your Kind of People was preceded by the release of "Blood for Poppies" as the lead single internationally, while in the United Kingdom, "Battle in Me" was marketed as the album's lead single. The album also spawned three more singles, "Automatic Systematic Habit", "Big Bright World", and "Control". Not Your Kind of People received a generally positive reception from critics. It debuted at number 17 on the Billboard 200, at number 10 on the UK Albums Chart, peaked at number three on Billboard's Independent Albums chart and topped the Alternative Albums chart.

Garbage decided to take a hiatus in 2005, following the troubled production of their fourth studio album Bleed Like Me and cutting short the album's promotional tour. Aside from a reunion in 2007 to compose new tracks for the compilation Absolute Garbage, the band members found themselves involved in various projects, with Butch Vig producing Green Day, Foo Fighters, and Muse, while singer Shirley Manson recorded an unreleased solo album and made her professional acting debut as a series regular on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

In 2009, Vig and Manson met at the funeral of Pablo Castelaz, the six-year-old son of Dangerbird Records founder Jeff Castelaz, and had a conversation where, according to Vig, "we felt like we had some unfinished business, and we realized how precious life is and how important music has been in our lives." Manson suggested calling guitarists Duke Erikson and Steve Marker to get together and write some songs. One week later, the group informally convened in Los Angeles, where they laughed, drank, and reminisced of the old days, leaving behind the tensions among them and general weariness that was partly responsible for their 2005 breakup; they set up their equipment and "started fucking around". "We were all pleased to notice on the first day there just didn't seem to be any personal tensions," Vig recalled. "Enough time had passed that any sort of weirdness or tension that had risen between us all had dissipated. So it was easy. There was no one telling us what to do. We weren't signed to a label. We were between managers. So we made this on our own terms." In that session, the group wrote the song "Battle In Me".

In mid-2010, the entire group were in Los Angeles for a birthday, where Manson suggested they book a studio and spend time writing. Along with Garbage's long time engineer and Manson's husband Billy Bush, the band, as Bush described, "hung out for a couple weeks, drank some wine and played a bunch of music”. Three or four song ideas came together during this time. "But we didn't go right into making-a-record mode", Erikson recalled. "It took a bit of time for us to realize that we were going to make an album." Erikson described reconvening as a piecemeal process, saying that it informally began with the first phone conversations among them since their hiatus, as they discussed playing together again. After convening, and composing and performing song ideas together through multiple sessions, they then decided to move forward with the band and embark on a full-length album. The project took off in February 2011, when Manson called Vig proposing to reunite the band and try making a new record. Manson convoked the group out of an eagerness "to make loud music again". "I'm a loud person", she proclaimed; "I love noise and aggression. I crave contact. I needed to make that connection again. I think we all did. To get something back up when there was absolutely no momentum took a Herculean effort on everybody's part. It's like pulling yourself out of mud. Even to stand back up and say 'we're going to take another swing at this' was a scary feeling, and I'm proud of us for trying. It's much easier to stay at home.”

The band members stated that following the troublesome final years signed to Geffen Records, being an independent act again helped improve their mood and approach, with Vig remarking, "There were no expectations; no one even knew we were recording. So it was all under the radar and pretty casual and we all felt inspired after having that amount of time off ... when we started writing songs, they came fast and furious. We probably wrote 24, 25 songs over the course of a couple of months. Marker commented that "the business stuff ends up taking over some of that fun. We got really bogged down in people's expectations of what we were supposed to be doing, being on bigger record labels and stuff. With all that behind us, it was suddenly exciting again and it felt a lot like it did when we first formed, which was really just sort of a fun idea that we had." Manson added, "People at record companies live in fear of being wrong. Music cannot thrive in that environment. It is an unruly art form. You can't keep treating it like sausage meat. You have to let it morph and move and breathe."

Manson stated that eliminating the corporate pressure and indifference, as well as the band having a relaxed approach to the making of the record was pivotal for a healthy regroup, writing and recording process. "We didn't put any pressure on ourselves to finish an album... We just took our time and got together in two-week blocks of time – any longer than that I'm sure we would have started getting on each others' nerves. So we did two weeks and then we'd take some time off and then when everybody felt ready we'd get back in [the studio] again. As a result, I think everybody really enjoyed our time together and really plugged in", she remarked. Never much enjoying being in a studio, Manson relished the record-making process this time around.

Unlike the previous albums, which were done at Vig's Smart Studios in Madison, Wisconsin, Not Your Kind of People was mostly recorded in Los Angeles, where both Vig and Manson live. Smart was only used for some of Erikson's parts, as he was the only bandmember still in Wisconsin. The working process was also different; while the previous records had the band gathering for an entire year at Smart Studios, the band would instead work two weeks per month in Los Angeles, with Erikson and Marker flying in from Wisconsin and Colorado, respectively, then spend another two weeks in their home studios while e-mailing ideas back and forth to develop songs. Manson would also visit Vig's GrungeIsDead studio to experiment with vocals. Then they would get back together in the studio, which according to Marker "would be fun again because we hadn't seen these people for a couple of weeks."

The first recordings were done in two weeks of jam sessions at The Pass in Studio City. The band then moved to Bush's studio Red Razor Sounds at Atwater Village, where the engineer did a rough mix of the tracks. Vig declared that the album's mood emerged from the combination of the "trashy and lo-tech" studio which he compared to a small clubhouse with the band's ProTools and samplers. The band had a looser approach to recording and mixing compared to the "nano-editing" of Version 2.0.

The band worked on estimatedly "25 or 26 songs" during the album sessions; While a few were still "bits and pieces", Vig stated they might finish them as further bonus tracks, B-sides, or as part of an EP at a later point. Erikson said that the bonus tracks of the deluxe edition are songs that were not ready in time to join the regular track list. He also said that while most songs were new compositions, some were old ideas, such as the "10 years old or something" track "Show Me". Throughout the recording sessions for the album, the band mentioned several song titles via Facebook and Twitter; these included: "Alone", "Animal", "Choose Your Weapon", "Time Will Destroy Everything" and "T.R.O.U.B.L.E.". Manson confirmed on Twitter that "Animal" became "The One", a song from the deluxe version, while "Time Will Destroy Everything" was released as the b-side to the band's 2014 Record Store Day single, "Girls Talk".

A post on Garbage's Facebook page on January 23, 2012 announced that the band launched their own record label, Stunvolume, to self-release their new studio album, distributed in the United States by Fontana. Overseas distribution deals were made with Cooperative Music, Liberator Music, Sony Music Japan and Universal Canada. On March 7, 2012, Garbage confirmed the album track listing via YouTube. Four further tracks recorded for the deluxe edition were confirmed later in a press release issued through the band's own label. In the United Kingdom, 250 copies of the deluxe edition were signed by Garbage and issued as part of the Record Store Day campaign. The album had a worldwide release date of May 14, 2012. At the launch of the record, guitarist Duke Erikson said that "working with Garbage again was very instinctual. Like getting on a bicycle... with three other people"; Erikson added, "We haven't felt this good about a Garbage record since the last one." Los Angeles-based studio SMOG Design handled the album's artwork and creative campaign, featuring band photographs by Autumn de Wilde. According to Duke Erikson, for the cover "there was some art that we wanted to do but we didn't want to spend what the artist wanted us to", so instead of "a very colorful and complex cover" they opted to go the other way and be simplistic, with only a lowercase "g".

In the United States, Not Your Kind of People was released exclusively through iTunes during its first week, and debuted at number 17 on the Billboard 200 with 19,000 digital copies sold in its first week. In its second week, the album rose to number 13 with sales of over 22,000 copies. As of June 2016, the album has sold 98,000 copies in the US. In the United Kingdom, it became the band's fifth top-10 studio album when it entered the UK Albums Chart at number 10 with first-week sales of 8,310 copies. The album also debuted at number 33 on the Japanese Oricon chart, selling 1,983 copies.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Garbage

"Automatic Systematic Habit" 3:18
"Big Bright World" 3:35
"Blood for Poppies" 3:38
"Control" 4:12
"Not Your Kind of People" 4:57
"Felt" 3:26
"I Hate Love" 3:54
"Sugar" 4:01
"Battle in Me" 4:14
"Man on a Wire" 3:07
"Beloved Freak" 4:30

Total length: 42:50

Japanese deluxe edition bonus tracks

"The One" 4:43
"What Girls Are Made Of" 3:47
"Love Like Suicide" 3:49
"Bright Tonight" 4:02
"Show Me" 5:14

Garbage – production

Billy Bush – engineering, mixing, additional production

Butch Vig – mixing

Emily Lazar – mastering (at The Lodge, New York City)

Joe LaPorta – mastering (at The Lodge, New York City)

Garbage "Bleed Like Me (Japan, Warner Bros. Records, WPCR-12037)"

Bleed Like Me is the fourth studio album by American rock band Garbage. It was released worldwide on April 11, 2005, through Warner Music imprint A&E Records, with a North American release on Geffen Records the following day. For this album, the band chose a straight rock sound reminiscent of their live performances instead of the electronica that permeated their previous album Beautiful Garbage (2001). The first recording sessions took place in March 2003, but were mostly unproductive due to passive aggression between band members and a general lack of direction. As they struggled to record the album, Garbage quietly split for four months starting in October 2003. They reunited under producer John King in Los Angeles and, following a guest appearance by Dave Grohl on "Bad Boyfriend", they found a renewed focus on production. Garbage recruited drummer Matt Walker and bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen for new recording sessions and completed the album by late 2004.

Following critical praise and high chart positions for its lead single "Why Do You Love Me", Bleed Like Me had a strong opening week globally, debuting in the top five in eight countries including the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States.

Garbage's third album Beautiful Garbage had been promoted by a fourteen-month world tour, which culminated in a run of North American shows co-headlined with No Doubt and supported by The Distillers in October and November 2002. Before the tour started, the band spent two weeks at Smart Studios—their recording studio in Madison, Wisconsin—to write new material for their upcoming album. Upon completion of the tour in December 2002, the group took some time off; Shirley Manson returned to her native Scotland, while Butch Vig completed production work on albums by AFI and Jessy Moss. The band regrouped in February 2003 to perform "Pride (In the Name of Love)" at a MusiCares tribute to U2 frontman Bono. Immediately after the event, they returned to Madison to continue working on their follow-up record.

On the first day in the studio, Garbage composed a new track, "Right Between the Eyes", in 30 minutes. Other tracks written during the early sessions were "Hangin' with the Bitches" and "Never Be Free" (with John 5). Vig said that the quick start made the band feel optimistic and gave the impression that the album would be completed as rapidly as in six months, but "[the album] took a slow spiral downhill". Recording for the album was halted during the summer when Manson underwent surgery to remove a cyst on her right vocal cord, forcing her to recuperate until August 2003. On September 10, a backhoe careened into the outer walls of Smart Studios, causing extensive damage. Both Garbage and the band Paris, Texas had been working on their albums in the studio. The sessions were permeated by passive-aggressive tensions and an overall lack of artistic focus. According to Vig, "there were a lot of personal arguments and we couldn't agree on songs". Manson suffered writer's block and had trouble writing lyrics, and Vig did not like the way the songs sounded. The drummer said that the group frequently argued during production, and that the entire band almost quit. Duke Erikson said that nobody could agree about the music's direction, and the band was on the verge of breaking up. He said, "When you lose that common bond of the music, you've got nothing". Eventually, the group suffered "a complete and utter band meltdown" in October, leading the band members splitting and taking a break from the sessions.

Vig left the studio and returned to Los Angeles. Over the Christmas period, he encountered excited Garbage fans eager to hear about the album's progress. Not wanting to disappoint them, he disclosed some song titles to them; after this encounter, he realized that the band still had a future. During the break, Vig met Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters in a party, and casually asked if he would perform drums on a Garbage track, "Bad Boyfriend", as Vig had been frustrated with the song's existing drum track.

At the beginning of 2004, the band decided to try to salvage the album, taking their management's suggestion to work with an external producer for the first time. The musicians also decided that neutral territory would be beneficial, and went to Los Angeles. John King, one half of the production duo Dust Brothers, was enlisted to produce "Bad Boyfriend". Drummer Matt Chamberlain and bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen were hired to perform on the songs. The recordings were completed in King's studio The Boat and Sound City in Los Angeles. Towards the end of the recording sessions, Grohl spent a day performing on drums for "Bad Boyfriend". The band said his performance was "raising the bar" for the record, and Vig said that Grohl "brought a different energy level to the song", which Erikson and Steve Marker tried to follow with their guitar playing. This influenced most of the songs that followed; the musicians wanted the songs to be "scrappy and primal sounding".

The experience with King, despite only resulting in the completion of one track, "Bad Boyfriend", gave the band perspective and direction. Manson said that because the band members still had problems speaking to each other, King could not get much work out of the band, so they realized that they needed to work out their differences and was the catalyst for the band getting back together and working harmoniously. Vig said that the tensions led the band members to become "burned out on each other", and that reuniting made them feel able to play "fast and furious—as if our lives depended on it". Manson overcame her writer's block and began to inject political slants into her lyrics, matching them with some new material the band wrote immediately after the King sessions; both "Metal Heart" and "Boys Wanna Fight" referenced the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Despite a plan to record some material with producer Tony Hoffer, the band decided to complete the rest of the album themselves. Erikson later said, "It was kind of seductive to think that maybe someone else [would] solve all of our problems, but in the end you gotta do it yourself".

Feeling that previous album Beautiful Garbage seemed fractured, the band decided to use their live sound; Vig said that he wanted "the pumping energy that all the best raw rock records have". The band decided that their fourth album would have a straightforward rock sound, instead of a reliance upon electronica and computer interventions. The musicians composed separately at their home studios, sending each other tracks through e-mail and couriers, and the band returned to Wisconsin to finish the album. Bleed Like Me emerged from a collage of samples and loops, and this time the sound was simpler. Erikson said that rather than production, they depended on the songs. Vig opted to focus on the production duties and leave the drums to guest musicians such as Grohl, whom he considered better at the instrument than him. He also played more guitars on the album, which he found liberating. As a result, drummer Matt Walker also played on several tracks on the album, while Meldal-Johnsen played bass guitar. Most of Manson's vocals were recorded at Vig's home studio, GrungeIsDead.

On October 18, the band began mixing the album. Some songs were mixed several times; "Sex Is Not the Enemy" was re-recorded three times during the mixing process, "Right Between the Eyes" was recalled from mastering twice, and the band included live strings at the last minute on "Happy Home". While the project's working title was Hands on a Hard Body, after the 1997 documentary of the same name, when Manson announced the album's release in November 2004, she confirmed that it would be titled Bleed Like Me. By December 6, 2004, the album was officially completed. It was mastered in New York City; the initial mastering was completed on December 15, 2004, and the final master was ready for January 6, 2005.

Bleed Like Me debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 with 73,000 copies sold in its first week, becoming the band's first top-10 album on the chart. It fell to number 24 the following week, selling 32,000 copies. By October 2011, the album had sold 284,000 copies in the United States. Bleed Like Me debuted at number four on the UK Albums Chart, selling 27,375 copies in its first week. The album had sold 84,339 copies in the United Kingdom as of July 2007, and on July 22, 2013, it was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). Bleed Like Me also charted within the top 10 in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Mexico, and Sweden.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Garbage, except where noted